Occasionally I come across a quote, a picture, odds and ends that I save in a folder on my laptop for potential use in the blog. Here's something I've been saving for awhile, from the memoir "Things I Didn't Know" by the Australian art critic Robert Hughes. With all the recent dustup over one of the presidential candidates' alleged "elitism," I thought this might be a nice time to throw Hughes' comments into the mix:

There's no getting around it...as violinist Aaron Berofsky and I get ready for the third and final concert of our Beethoven sonata cycle in Ann Arbor this Wednesday evening (May 14), I still have to admit that I still find the 9th sonata, the famous "Kreutzer," the most challenging of all Beethoven's violin sonatas. Mostly that's speaking from a technical standpoint, but the middle movement also presents some big interpretive questions as well. Stamina is needed, too; it's really the only middle-period Beethoven violin sonata, the only one of the ten that could be said to be kindred spirit to the "Waldstein" and "Appassionata" piano sonatas, or the Op. 59 quartets. And as gassing as the piano part is at times, it's the relentless physicality of the violin part...surely unprecendented in its time...that is even more striking.

The violinist Rodolphe Kreutzer, to whom the Sonata is dedicated, never once played it. Beethoven originally wrote the work for George Bridgetower, who was of mixed West Indian and German parentage and who lived most of his life in England. Beethoven's original jesting dedication to Bridgetower read "Sonata per uno mulattico lunattico." Later, the two had a falling-out, Beethoven re-dedicating it to Kreutzer, who promptly declared the work unplayable.

George Bridgetower [credit: British Museum]

More of the story about the Beethoven 9th Violin Sonata here. And you can read much more about the remarkable life of George Bridgetower on this site.

Americans for the Arts has just issued a comprehensive comparative study of arts businesses and arts employees in all 50 states, with figures also for the 50 largest cities and all 435 congressional districts in the nation. For purposes of their study, the "creative industries" as they call them naturally encompass performing arts institutions, but also museums, the visual arts (including architecture), and a whole host of other enterprises. AFA gathers its figures from Dun and Bradstreet and acknowledges that many nonprofit organizations and individual artists would not be included in these statistics. Nevertheless, the study does give an intriguing picture of the nation's creative "hotspots," and it's easy to look up your part of the country to see how it stacks up nationally.

None of South Carolina's cities rank in the top 50 population-wise and so are not included in the city rankings. Naturally, in raw numbers, New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago rank one, two, and three in both number of arts businesses and arts employees. But when you calculate the number of arts employees per capita, the number one city in the United States is...Atlanta. And it's by a country mile, too...Atlanta has 47.69 arts employees per 1000 residents, which means that one out of every twenty people you meet in Atlanta is employed in one of the "creative industries." The second place city, San Francisco, lags with 39.73 per 1000, and for comparison, only about 28 out of 1000 New Yorkers are "arts employees." The "arts businesses" per capita rankings are only slightly different, with Atlanta coming in third behind Seattle and San Francisco.

Another southern city that ranks high in these per capita rankings is Nashville, 7th in arts businesses and 11th in arts employees. How about Charlotte? It ranked pretty well, 20th in arts businesses and 22nd in arts employees, right about at par with its population rank (20th) and better than many other cities that enjoy more of a reputation as artistic centers such as Houston and Chicago.

Although we don't have any rankings for South Carolina cities, there are state-by-state comparisons, and the good news is the Palmetto State barely lags its population rank (25th) in these criteria: 26th in arts businesses and 27th in arts employees. And the trend is upward: South Carolina ranked 4th in the percentage increase of arts businesses over the measured period.

The picture is less rosy when you zero in on our home congressional district, the SC 2nd, which includes most of Columbia and much of the Midlands which is the home base of this blog. We rank 209th out of 435 districts in arts businesses which is actually pretty good, but only 334th in arts employees. As you might expect given that they include many very poor communities, the 5th and 6th congressional districts are in about the bottom 10-20% nationally in the creative industries. Oddly, the SC 4th district (which includes the upstate cities of Greenville and Spartanburg) accounts for 145 fewer arts businesses than our Midlands' 2nd District, but nearly twice as many arts employees! Do they just have huge staffs at their museums? Tons of individual working artists? Curious.

The best showing in our state by far, however, is the First Congressional District, which includes of course Charleston, so that should come as no real surprise. Again remembering that these are rankings of 435 districts nationwide, the SC 1st comes in at 89th place in arts businesses and 108th in arts employees.

The search is complete: Morihiko Nakahara,  associate conductor of the Jacksonville and Spokane symphony orchestras and Director of Orchestras at Eastern Washington University, has been named the new Music Director of the South Carolina Philharmonic. He'll assume his duties for the upcoming 2008-2009 season.

All reports were that he was the strong choice of the musicians themselves; several of the members of the orchestra who I had spoken to over the course of the season indicated as much. I didn't get to hear his concert with the orchestra (he was the second candidate to guest-conduct the orchestra) but there was buzz immediately following his appearance, and that lasted throughout the year. I'm glad the search committee and the bulk of the orchestra were in accord about the choice. It will be exciting to see what Nakahara and the orchestra can accomplish together in their first season together, beginning in the fall.

One of the many unfortunate side effects of our country's at-times "blunt instrument" approach to handling the threat of terrorism has been the debilitating strictures attached to getting visas approved for many artists, actors, musicians, dancers from overseas who are invited to appear in our country. It has had a terrible effect and has, in many instances, resulted in performances being canceled. The Spoleto Festival's General Director, Nigel Redden, expressed it thusly to the New York Times:

“We’re turning the United States into fortress America...It turns everyone into an enemy. It loses us friends around the world and respect around the world.”

But there has been some good news lately: just a couple of weeks ago the House of Representatives voted to change some of the rules pertaining to artist visas in an attempt to make the process less burdensome for non-profit organizations bringing foreign artists to our shores. No word yet on what the Senate has decided to do with this legislation. Let's hope it passes, and that when it reaches the desk of the President, that Condi Rice might put in a good word for the legislation and convince W to sign it into law.